Combustion

by Martin J. Smith

  Tommy Starke stared again at the truck, but this time without any intensity. His eyes roamed the parking lot, from the rice burners to the low riders to the busy hive around the El Burrito Rodeo truck. Then he took a big bite of burrito, chewed and swallowed, then just said, “Damn. That’s good.”

  15

  Eckel called Starke’s cell at six in the morning on Tuesday, and again urged him to stop by. At 6:45 Starke was standing next to the deputy coroner, who was shoveling his breakfast into his mouth from a Thermos. Scrambled eggs. Bacon. Buttered toast. The comforting smells mixed with the cold meat smell coming from the morgue’s refrigeration units down the hall. “The wife treats me right,” Eckel said with a smile, dabbing a bit of yellow yolk from the corner of his mouth.

  “So, just to review, Eck, you have the choice of eating breakfast at home with her, or bringing it here to eat. And you prefer to eat it here?”

  Eckel shrugged. “Busy, busy. It’s not like I eat in the exam room. Toast?”

  “Pass.” Starke looked at his watch, still tasting the burrito he’d downed just a few hours before. “Hate to rush you, but I have appointments today. Show me what you wanted to show me.”

  Eckel replaced the Thermos lid and led him along the linoleum corridor. He stopped at a refrigerator door about halfway down the unit, pulled the handle, and slid out a rack holding the body of a deflated Paul Dwyer. Starke’s hand went instinctively to his face and pinched his nose shut.

  “He’s looking better, eh?”

  Human at least, Starke thought. “Let me guess,” he said, his voice tinny and sharp. “You had Oswaldo let the air out of him because he asked if he could.”

  Eckel waggled his eyebrows. “Ve haf a special tool for zis,” he said, holding up a sharp pencil.

  “Yuck.”

  Dwyer was lying on his side, rigor having frozen him in the position of a man floating underwater but anchored by his neck. The position, now fully revealed in the body’s deflated state, was grotesque. Still, Starke could tell that Dwyer had been a handsome man. He was fifty-four when he died, long-legged and lean, with thick silver hair that in recent photographs swept straight back along his skull, but which now was mussed into a lopsided dull gray cumulus peppered by pond dirt and moss. His skin was pale yellow, the color of a file folder. His face was a gruesome death mask, mouth open, eyes shut, but his jaw was square and powerful, as was his upper body. No belly, even hunched as he was. On top of everything else in his busy life, the man managed to work out regularly, and Starke found himself illogically inspired by Dwyer’s corpse, thinking maybe he, too, should make more time for exercise.

  “The water did you no favors, sir,” Eckel said. “God only knows what evidence isn’t here anymore. But there were two things we weren’t sure about on the initial look-see, and I wanted to show you before we released the body later today. Appreciate you coming in so early.”

  Eckel slid the pencil beneath Dwyer’s rigid arm until its point was just inches from Dwyer’s right nipple. “See those two dark marks?” he said.

  Starke pinched his nose tight and bent in close. He could feel his eyes watering, but through the blur he saw two small dark brown marks about the size of houseflies, about two inches apart.

  “Stun gun?” he said.

  “The handheld kind,” Eckel said. “There’s three more like it, two on the inside of his thighs right up next to his junk, and one under his left arm. All pre-mortem. Somebody didn’t like him.”

  “Tortured?”

  “With malice,” Eckel said, holding up what looked like an empty, clear plastic Baggie. “This might explain how.”

  Starke squinted, then fished his reading glasses from the inside pocket of his sports jacket. With his free hand still holding his nose, he pulled the evidence bag closer. Inside were short strands of what looked like extraordinarily thick blond hairs.

  “What are these, Eck?”

  “Hemp fibers, the kind you find in good strong rope. They were embedded in his skin.” Using the pencil, he pointed to a brownish-red discoloration that ran all the way around Dwyer’s ankles. Same patterns on his wrists. “He was tied up and struggling. And those burn marks from the stun gun are direct to skin, not through clothing. Roped like a steer. Naked. Zapped. I think you’ll agree, Ron, it’s probably not the most dignified way to go.”

  Whoa, Starke thought.

  “I’m gonna go out on a limb again,” Eckel said. “Somebody had some anger issues.”

  Starke tried to imagine how the killer got a strapping man like Dwyer roped up and helpless. It’d take two, maybe three ruthlessly brutal people to manage it, and that scenario didn’t fit anything he’d come up with so far. Just what he needed: more possibilities. But if Dwyer had been unconscious….

  “Got a tox report yet, Eck?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Any way to know now if he was drugged?”

  Eckel shook his head. “I’d just be guessing. Wait for tox. But lemme show you one more thing before you go.”

  Eckel led him back into the outer office, then through the door into the main exam room. Blessedly empty, Starke noted. The massive computer monitor that had anchored Dwyer’s body was sitting by itself on one of the exam tables. It was cleaner now, almost recognizable as the piece of ancient technology that it was.

  “Whoever had this was probably a middle-aged tech geek, or got it from someone like that,” Eckel said. He tapped the mottled lettering just beneath the screen’s broken glass: “Vanguard.”

  “That’s the brand?” Starke asked. “Never heard of it.”

  “Not surprised. I had Oz check it out. They only made these for two years, back in the early 1980s. Even then, they were so heavy and bulky, they were probably most effective as anchors. Company’s been out of business for two decades. So whoever had this was probably an early adopter of computer technology.”

  “Or somebody that shopped at Silicon Valley garage sales,” Starke said. “Maybe it’s significant. Hard to say.”

  “Never know. Just thought I’d mention it. OK? OK.”

  Eckel stepped to a scrub sink and washed his hands in gooey disinfectant. Starke did the same, holding his breath when he let go of his nose, then pinching it shut again as soon as he had a free hand. When he finished, he followed Eckel back into the outer office. The deputy coroner was already chowing down, steam still rising from the scrambled eggs. Starke didn’t want to interrupt again, so he called a nasal, “Thanks Eck,” through his fingers as he headed for the car.

  16

  Shelby moved the unfamiliar mouse, and the sleeping PC blinked to life. It made no sound. She was grateful for that, but wasn’t sure why. While Chloe was at school, she’d spent the day wrestling with the endless details of a funeral. Now it was early afternoon and the house was silent. Even after everything, she finally felt ready, compelled, to connect with others—even nameless, faceless others—who made her feel wanted, who could give her what she craved. But that wasn’t the only reason she needed to dive back into her online world.

  Again she thought, How’d things get this crazy?

  With a few keystrokes, she created a new account, a new identity. It was easy to do. Now she was Gwen_23. She was twenty-three, with no personal history. If she wanted, she could make her new self beautiful, rich, and powerful without the pain, shame, and endless obligations. The avatar she chose had pouty lips and wore a body suit with just enough cleavage to be inviting but not trashy. Gwen_23 could move through this virtual world without leaving tracks—flirting, seducing, ignoring, whatever—the way Shelby had when she really was twenty-three, but without the messy complications.

  As Gwen_23, she also could move undetected onto the trail of Paul’s killer. Or at least that was what she hoped.

  Shelby knew only a name: LoveSick. She had no idea what he looked like, though his avatar was a white knight. She didn’t know where he lived, or what he might do if she ever found him again. The thing that worried her most was the twisted l
ogic of his love. Paul’s murder was a gift, he’d written, a heartfelt expression of his profound feelings for her. As he’d placed the gun against her husband’s head, she had begged. No, no, no, no, no. Not this. Please God no.

  He’d reminded her it was what she wanted. All those late-night conversations, the expressed desires. He’d recorded them all, studied them often until he’d finally understood what she’d been saying all along. She wanted them to be together. She’d wished there was a way.

  Didn’t she remember?

  No, no, no, no, no. Those were words. Only words. Fantasy. It wasn’t real. Please God no.

  In the stunned-dumb moment after her ghost lover pulled the trigger, after countless intimate conversations and shared desires, after unwittingly giving LoveSick everything he needed to know to lure Paul to his death, she’d ended it all with a mouse click, rejected his twisted gift. Rejected him. The horror disappeared, as simple as a channel change. She’d closed her eyes and waited three weeks, hoping to wake from the nightmare. Was still waiting.

  Now Ron Starke was asking questions.

  What could she tell him? What could she tell a jury? Silence was no longer an option. She had to find a phantom.

  Shelby moved the computer’s cursor to her web browser icon and stepped off the ledge.

  17

  Starke eased the Vic to the curb outside the two-story main headquarters of Delgado Construction. For a company working its way out of Chapter 11, the place looked pretty healthy. Its parking lot was filled with top-shelf German cars and the $35,000 work trucks of apparently prosperous contractors and subcontractors. He hoped the place was air-conditioned.

  His cell rang as he rolled up the driver-side window. It was Kerrigan’s secretary.

  “You’re gonna have to speak up, Ginge,” he said.

  “Can’t talk long, or very loud. Can you hear me?”

  “OK. What’s up?”

  “You may want to check your personnel file. Not today, or even this week. I don’t want it getting back to me. But check it sometime soon.”

  Starke rubbed his temples. “Let me guess. A letter of reprimand?”

  “Here’s a tip,” she said. “Don’t use the word ‘fucking’ when you’re accusing her of something. Did you really?”

  Shelby Dwyer knew her husband had been shot before the coroner publicly revealed that detail. How? Starke suspected one of two things: Shelby knew more than she was letting on, or Kerrigan had let slip that information when she notified Shelby that a body had turned up. He already knew his indelicate question to his boss—“How’d she know if you didn’t fucking tell her?”—was going to be a problem.

  “Maybe. How bad is this?”

  “On the Richter scale, it’s about a 3. Her notes are pretty mild. But I thought you’d want to know.”

  He wasn’t surprised. On the other hand, the nagging suspicion he’d had since Kerrigan took over the department was suddenly a real concern: The chief was building a case to get rid of him. He’d been passed over for the job she now had, the job his own father had once seemed destined to hold, and he was an attitude problem waiting to happen. From her perspective: Why was he still even hanging around? From his: What choice did he have? His resume was “on file” at cop shops all over Southern California, but his phone wasn’t ringing. He thanked Ginger for the heads up.

  “You didn’t hear it from me,” she warned.

  “You’re a good friend, Ginge. I’m in Torrance now, FYI. Back this afternoon.”

  Starke stepped out into the sweltering heat. The car’s AC was busted, just like the one at his apartment, and he’d hoped maybe LA’s South Bay would be cooler than the Inland Empire. He was wrong.

  “Morning,” he said, setting his shield down for the receptionist. “I’m here to see Mr. Delgado.”

  The woman checked her book. “Detective Starke. Yes. Just have a seat.”

  The reception area was chilly compared to the inferno outside. Take your time Mr. Delgado, he thought. Take your time.

  The night before, Starke had prioritized his schedule. He had two people he needed to talk to right away, contractor Robert Delgado in LA, and Dwyer Foundation President Deacon Beale in Riverside. Based on what he’d found so far, the Delgado interview seemed like the more intriguing possibility.

  The one-time Dwyer Development contractor had engaged in a bitter public feud with Dwyer for much of the preceding year, including lawsuits. Dwyer’s big LA project—a massive cluster of glorified tract homes marring the last open space along the Palos Verdes peninsula—had been a decade-long scrum of local outrage, conservancy protests, and labor strife. In the middle of all that, one of Dwyer’s “community liaisons” had been caught leaving a Redondo Beach hotel room that had been booked by a member of the powerful California Coastal Commission, and a video of her walk of shame became must-see YouTube viewing among the project’s opposition. The fallout derailed the entire project for a year, during which Dwyer Development stopped paying contractors whose crews and equipment were idled, including Delgado’s. One court filing alluded to a colorful threat Delgado made when confronting Dwyer at a job site, all within earshot of his subs: “You’ll die first, because I’ll yank your heart out through your asshole, asshole.”

  Delgado seemed like a promising lead. Beale could wait.

  A cannonball with legs suddenly burst through the back-office door. Short, maybe five foot five, and nearly as round as he was tall, Delgado had a pencil-thin mustache that reminded Starke of 1980s-era Wayne Newton. He was finishing a conversation with someone behind him, handing a stack of rolled blueprints to a toady scuttling alongside, and simultaneously extending his hand, practically pulling Starke up off the couch where he’d been waiting.

  “Can we make this fast?” he said by way of greeting.

  Starke followed him through the back-office door, around a corner, and into a private room that looked less like an executive office than an on-site construction trailer. Delgado collapsed into leather chair and rolled it forward, folding his beefy forearms on the desk in front of him. Starke claimed the chair across from him and took out his notebook.

  “I didn’t kill him,” Delgado began.

  “Come again?”

  “It wasn’t me. But only because somebody beat me to it.”

  Starke studied the man’s eyes. If he had to guess, what he saw there was pure, unbridled glee. He scribbled a note to that effect. “You’re talking about Paul Dwyer, then?”

  “I hear he had a family and all, may God strike me dead. But the guy tried to ruin me. Not an accident. Not bad luck. He just flat out fucked me in the ass and left me for dead, and it’s taken me the better part of a year to get this company back on its feet. So do I really care?”

  “Do you?”

  Delgado sawed an imaginary bow across a violin’s strings. “I hear somebody shot him right here,” he said, pointing to the side of his own head. He smiled. “And they say there’s no justice.”

  Starke scribbled another note. “Just to be clear, Mr. Delgado, you’re saying that Paul Dwyer deserved to be shot in the head?”

  Delgado suddenly looked nervous. “Don’t get me wrong.”

  “Maybe I misunderstood then.”

  “No love lost between me and Dwyer, understand,” Delgado said. “I knew his reputation when I went into business with him. Can’t blame him for my stupidity. I never should’ve agreed to his terms, because it put us in the toilet and he knew that. I didn’t kill him, though.”

  “So you said. I don’t recall asking that question, but I’ll note your response.” Starke waited. “Maybe you can just tell me where you were and what you were doing on the date Mr. Dwyer disappeared.”

  Starke gave him the date. Delgado leaned over his desk and flipped back through the pages of his desk calendar. “ASH,” he said. “American Society of Homebuilders. It’s an annual thing. Three days in Vegas. I left the day before he went missing, got back a day or so later. I remember now, because I was at the H
ooters Resort when my office called. They’d heard Dwyer was MIA and wanted to put me in a good mood. I was halfway there, anyway. Ever stay at the Hooters, detective?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Real Vegas, baby. They got one of them mechanical bulls. Bikini bull-riding contest every Saturday night. High-rent poon.” He winked. “All you can eat, know what I mean? That’s where I was when I heard the news.”

  Starke couldn’t get a handle on Delgado. He had guile, or was totally without guile. Hard to tell which.

  “Here,” Delgado said, tossing an unsealed envelope across the desk. “I was just putting this together for our controller.”

  Starke pulled a stack of receipts from the envelope. Airline tickets. Restaurants. Bars. Coffee shops. Cabs. Convenient, Starke thought. An entire alibi in an envelope.

  “Executive International?” Starke asked, holding up one receipt. “The escort service?”

  “Whoa!” Delgado snatched it out of Starke’s hand before he could object. “I’ll take that one.”

  Starke copied the words “Executive International” into his notebook. It was all he’d had time to read. Delgado fed the receipt into a shredder beneath his desk, its whir a dead giveaway, then smoothed the diverging rails of hair along his upper lip.

  “Musta got mixed in with the others,” Delgado said.

  “Of course.”

  Starke shuffled the paperwork in his hands. The largest receipt, printed on 8.5 x 11 paper, was from the Hooters Resort. The stay dates covered a three-day span during which Dwyer disappeared and apparently was killed. Starke made a note to check with Southwest Airlines and the American Society of Homebuilders to verify that Delgado had actually been in Vegas and present at the conference all three days.

  “Could I get copies of these receipts, Mr. Delgado?”

  “Why not?” The cannonball stood up, took the receipts back from Starke, and disappeared into an adjoining room. Through the open door, Starke could hear the copy machine. Delgado was back within a minute. He handed Starke the copies he’d made.